Blake, Roddick slam sanctions plan for ATP absentees

By Bill Scott Mar 10, 2007, 11:57 GMT

Indian Wells, California - Top tennis players are worried the ATP may be over-stepping the mark with radical revisions due to be voted on for the 2009 season.

Heading the list of fears is that players could be suspended from a succeeding event for missing even one of what is due to become a scaled-back eight Masters tournaments, down from the current nine.

The radical calendar shake-up is due for discussion and a likely vote when the sanctioning body's board meets in Miami in less than two weeks.

The closed-door sessions promise to be contentious.

American James Blake, vice president of the player council will attend the meeting and the world number 6 remains unconvinced harsh tactics will work on the individualists who populate the world of professional tennis.

Four of the elite events will put men and women together - the current Indian Wells, California and Miami tournaments plus hot contenders Madrid and Shanghai.

Russian Marat Safin has already voiced his doubts about the requirement that players compete in all eight events. Those who do not may be faced with suspensions, a first-ever tough step.

'To make us play eight out of eight will be a very tough ask, especially all over the world,' said Blake. 'This all seems really harsh, we'll have to talk about it in Miami.

'It's still our tour, we're the players and we need to make the decisions that are going to benefit us. We need to make sure that we find a compromise, a middle ground.'

American Andy Roddick said he also doubts the wisdom of penalising players for absences that could easily be due to injury.

'The whole goal is to keep top players in events. If they don't show up for one, you suspend them from another?

'I don't see how that's keeping your top players in events, we'll see how that works.'

Roddick said ATP bosses are failing to take inevitable injuries into account.

'You can't set it in stone, there are a lot of grey areas. You're gonna get suspended because you have a sprained ankle and they want an MRI as proof?' he said. 'You can't take injuries out of the equation when you're playing a sport.'

All players seem to agree that this season's ill-starred experiment with a round-robin format at smaller tournaments should be immediately killed.

Blake hoped something positive can come out of last week's debacle that resulted in embarrassment for the ATP over a sloppy rules interpretation.

Blake bore the brunt of the disappointment at the Las Vegas event after a rule reversal left him without a quarter-final place in a round-robin event after group play.

The seat-of-the-pants decision made in the middle of the night in Europe came after a fevered conference call between tournament officials and ATP boss Etienne de Villiers in London.

Blake shrugged off the distasteful incident on Friday at the Indian Wells Masters.

'Hopefully the best thing that can come out is that round-robin is going by the wayside,' said Blake.

'Leave it (round-robin) to the (eight-man) Masters Cup,' he said. 'There are too many variables, I don't want it any more. I don't want to see any more round-robin tournaments that get decided on who goes through by a rule as opposed to who wins a match. It's a bit of an unnatural feeling to an athlete - it's not worth it.'